Do you have good writing skills and the ability to build a reputation for yourself within a specific industry? Then launching a blog could be an ideal side business for you. Once you have a regular audience of readers, you'll have countless options about how to monetize your site with ad support, your own e-books, online courses, sponsored content, and personalized consulting services.
This is the BEST list that I have seen in a long while. I have so many tabs open from clicking on these links! I am a current high school senior but I’ve been side hustling practically my entire life, from lemonade stands and my childhood “art” to selling on Ebay, and pretty soon, on Etsy. This list gave me some great ideas and advice and I can’t wait to put them into practice!
Do you love being outside, planting flowers and pulling weeds? Many people find this a chore but others (myself included) love doingyardwork and planting. If this is you, then you could think about starting a landscaping and yardwork business on the side. You could offer to design beds, plant flowers and shrubs, cut grass, pull weeds, and rake leaves.
Do you enjoy fast food or going into retail shops? Many companies hire mystery shoppers to test the customer service of their stores. A common one is Subway, which hires mystery shoppers to ensure that "Sandwich Artists" are following all the franchise guidelines. If you have time and can travel to different places, this could be a good side hustle.
If you want to speed up the process of launching your blog, I recommend setting up quick, affordable and easy website hosting with a company like Bluehost, choosing a simple WordPress theme and working on your first post, in order to set the precedent of prioritizing your time on creating content, connecting with (and building) your audience. Then once you've been able to build a community around your blog, you'll want to invest in really understanding your readers—so that you can give them more of what they want.
Like drinking beer? Why not try making it yourself as your side business idea? With enough patience and skill you might end up brewing something that others are willing to pay to drink. Pick up an easy-to-use starter kit from Mr. Beer online, invest the time it'll take to perfect your craft, make a unique brew and start shopping it around to friends & family to see what they think of this side business idea.

If you want to speed up the process of launching your blog, I recommend setting up quick, affordable and easy website hosting with a company like Bluehost, choosing a simple WordPress theme and working on your first post, in order to set the precedent of prioritizing your time on creating content, connecting with (and building) your audience. Then once you've been able to build a community around your blog, you'll want to invest in really understanding your readers—so that you can give them more of what they want.

Blogging Tip: If you’re passionate about blogging, create an online store that you can monetize and add a blog onto it. This allows you to start monetizing your asset before you’ve built your audience. Plus, the combination of content and commerce is a powerful one. As your blog grows, you can use retargeting ads to monetize your blog traffic to land even more sales. If you pump out regular, quality content you’ll quite possibly have a few home run posts that bring you a ton of traffic that’ll be easier to monetize than if you were hoping for a few affiliate sales.

Once your following becomes large enough you can begin implementing any of the other strategies in this article. You can drop in links to affiliate products, you can market a course, a podcast or even sell a product. The poster child for this model right now is The Hustle – a newsletter geared towards millennials that focuses on the tech space. Sam Parr, its founder, was able to drive 100,000 subscriptions in 5 months and leveraged that audience to create HustleCon, a startup conference for non-techies. During his first year of the conference, he sold 400 tickets and made $50,000.

Everybody knows that finding (and landing) your dream job can be tough—especially when you've had the same position for a while and your resume is looking a little rusty. Before jumping in and becoming an expert resume writer, you'll have to learn how to write a resume on your own, and then practice by redoing resume's for your friends and co-workers. Next, you're ready to join a resume writers' association, continue establishing your credibility and you can eventually make your way into more hands-on career coaching opportunities.

This is where you decide on your target audience. Do you want to come up with plans for people who are concerned about their cholesterol; people who follow a certain type of diet (vegan, etc.), or do you want to go in the direction of weight loss? Eventually you can cover a range, but when you are first building your business you want to focus on one particular niche. Once this is established you can build your business to include other niches as well.
If you own a car but barely use it, you can make some easy cash as an effortless side business idea by renting it out on Turo. Before you freak out, know that there’s a $1 Million insurance policy on all cars, plus drivers are prescreened, so you can have peace of mind. Closely related to renting out your car is another new service I recently came across (available only in the UK at the moment) called YourParkingSpace where you can sign up to list your available parking space through the app, and earn when people decide to use your spot.
I’ve never worked as a freelance writer for any websites because I was never able to find lucrative enough gigs. I didn’t want to write posts for $200-$300 each. I wanted to get paid to write $5,000 – $10,000 reports! So I haven’t written as a freelancer for any websites, but what I have done quite a bit of is write white papers for companies. Here’s basically how it works. Consulting companies, engineering firms, law firms, and tons of other professional service firms like to put out “thought leadership” reports which basically are blog/research reports on steroids. Sometimes they are pretty big.
As a freelance illustrator, you can take your skills in a number of directions. You might work for advertising agencies, stock image houses, magazine or book publishers, record labels, greeting card companies, digital properties, merchandisers, or other businesses. Some illustrators serve such narrow specialty niches as courtroom sketch artists, or niches in fashion, medicine, or technology. Or you might primarily work in fine art to be sold to customers directly or through galleries or agents.
Business owners’ calendars need to be able to accommodate meetings with clients, but these meetings can be scheduled during business hours, evenings or weekends. Many life coaches have started their businesses by working as a coach part-time during non-business hours while remaining employed part- or full-time, and then transitioned to coaching more as their business grew.

Whether in the classroom, at the grocery store, or on a job site, there’s always the potential that someone could need immediate, life saving medical assistance. Many SCA victims require defibrillation within 4 minutes of an attack, yet it takes emergency medical personnel 8-12 minutes to arrive after an emergency call is placed. Your assistance in training individuals and workplace teams will, undoubtedly, save someone’s life.

You can have your own store up in only a few minutes at eBay. To start, you must have a seller account, must be verified through PayPal. You are even able to give a detailed description of your store with a catchy design to attract customers. I have a friend who will buy all of the unused bras at a last chance type of store and resell them for a profit at her eBay store. Last I heard, she was doing $1,000/month in her first couple of months.

I’m sure you’re familiar with newsletters so I’ll skip the intro and dive right into the juicy stuff. Newsletters are a fantastic vehicle for driving revenue. Every single successful business in 2016 has some type of newsletter. Why? Because they are the only way to build, store and directly reach your audience. Facebook can change its policies, Google’s cost-per-click can go up but if you have someone subscribed to your newsletter you own all of the messaging.
However, it is when I tried to get some hard info out of it that I ran into trouble. For example, the one website that was recommended for doing little IT jobs on the side turned out to be a depressing place where people desperately bid for jobs for extremely little money ("$12 if you configure my email software"). Also, the tax chapter didn't seem to really belong: I had to read it multiple times and still couldn't figure out whether I'd have to pay self- employment tax as a day trader or be subject to schedule C, etc...
This blog currently makes over $10,000 per month on advertising and affiliate revenue. If you want to dive deeper here’s more information on how much money you can make blogging. This is money that I have to do nothing to get – readers just reader, they sometimes click, and then sometimes they sign-up or try a service at no cost to them. Here’s a guide I wrote on how to start a blog and make money.
Make extra money providing a simple service that’s like going for a walk! For over 30 years I’ve been cleaning up litter outside retail, office and industrial properties. I simply walk the property and clean up litter with inexpensive hand tools. Great side hustle as the work needs to be done before the businesses open for the day. I’ve written a book, Cleanlots, that details how to get started.
So, I put together a free master course for you to take that spreads out all of the work involved in starting a blog, into a series of action-packed lessons. My free course breaks the entire process of starting a blog down into an incredibly simple 7-day process for going from 0 to publishing (and promoting) your first blog post in just 1 week. I can't recommend it enough.
If you want to find a profitable online course idea in the next 3 days, join my free online course Find a Profitable Business Idea today. It'll walk you step-by-step through the process I've used to generate more than $15,000 in online course sales in a single week. Then once you're ready to start teaching your own online course, I recommend using Teachable, the easiest and most affordable platform to use for creating, hosting and selling your online courses. They also have a ton of free educational resources about how to get started with creating an online course (yes, even as a side business idea) when you sign up right here.

Web designers are incredibly valuable for technology companies—which is why becoming a freelance web designer is a top side business idea today. Web design is all about mastering the art of creating a beautiful, value-driven experience for the people using a website or app. There are always new websites popping up in need of professional web design, and foundational books like HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites by acclaimed web designer Jon Duckett and Don't Make Me Think by user experience legend Steve Krug will get you started down the right path to quickly determining whether or not becoming a web designer is a viable side business idea for you.

Everyone that buys a painting or has a nice photograph or a portrait made of their family may also need to have that work framed. Framing requires a specialized skill set that includes having craft-person talents, the ability to do simple carpentry, to know how to safely run a table saw, and have a good eye for pleasing aesthetic designs. You will need to understand color combinations and how to make a painting or a photo nicely framed to fit in well with the intended surroundings.
Obviously, this business is great for those who are already fit and have worked hard to create an exercise and health regimen that works, as they can use their personal experience to help educate others. It's good for someone who is a “people person,” as the entire job revolves around regular interaction with a diverse clientele. It is also good for someone who is a natural leader—just as a good manager or coach helps people to visualize and then actualize success, a good personal trainer helps clients visualize a healthier self and provides a pathway to achieving that goal.
This business is right for those who enjoy learning about technology and the challenge of restoring damaged items to like-new condition. Professionals in this business help conserve natural resources while helping customers preserve treasured photos and online communications as well as valuable software and digital content such as games, books, and music.
The problem with traditional conferences is that they can be super expensive to run. You need to rent the venue, buy the catering, pay the speakers, hire event staff – those costs add up fast. What if there was a way to host the conference without all of the unnecessary costs? Well, a few smart people figured out that by running the conference virtually you effectively mitigate all of the expenses allowing you to discount ticket prices while still turning a profit and delivering massive value to your audience!
No matter where you're from or what you do for a living, thanks to the conveniences afforded to us by the internet, making money is no longer a constant and never-ending struggle. With the proverbial world at our fingertips, as long as you know how to tap into the vast amount of opportunities found in the digital ether of cyberspace, you can earn some extra income, even if you're in a tight bind.
We all know you can buy and sell stuff on Craigslist, but have you ever thought about offering a service you can provide. If providing a service isn’t your thing, you can scan Craigslist for great deals and then later resell items for a profit. This takes persistence and patience, but I have a friend who went from a $4k truck to a $24k in truck in 18 months by flipping cars from Craigslist.
As you can see, you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to start a side business. The 11 ideas above only scratch the surface of the types of side business you can start to make extra money. Plus, who knows? You might even be able to turn your side hustle into a full-time career today. Start small with an equally small investment, and see where it takes you!
Guerin, an editor/author specializing in employment law, is author or co-author of several Nolo books, including The Manager's Legal Handbook, Dealing with Problem Employees, Nolo's Essential Guide to Federal Employment Laws, Workplace Investigations, Create Your Own Employee Handbook, and Nolo's Guide to California Law. Guerin has practiced employment law in government, public interest, and private practice where she represented clients at all levels of state and federal courts and in agency proceedings. She is a graduate of Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley.
Though illustrating can sometimes be a slow process, if you’re capable of making high-quality images in a short time, you can supplement your income with an illustration business. Cartooning, sketching, and such are in-demand and being able to provide these services can set you up with a steady stream of clients while you work a limited number of hours a week.
I love creating new business forms and have recently been thinking about putting my forms out on the internet for some passive income. I was thinking free “as is”, $5 to have company information added in a header, and more dollars for a custom made form. I’m looking to learn the best way to get it out there. I just found your blogs this evening and look forward to reading many of them. Thank you in advance for all the excellent information that I will be using.